The worst part of this swap of former Orangemen is that Greene and his non-guaranteed contract will likely be waived in order for the Celtics to get under the luxury tax. This means that when the Celtics handed David Stern the index card that read “Fab Melo” (instead of Festus Ezeli, Draymond Green, Jae Crowder, Quincy Acy, Arnett Moultrie, Kyle O’Quinn, Robert Sacre, Perry Jones III, Marquis Teague, Jeffrey Taylor, John Jenkins, or Orlando Johnson), they could have easily written “We will not be using this pick because we like a challenge.”

Memphis will now try again, as they did with Hasheem Thabeet, to make a basketball player out of a really tall, lumbering, uncoordinated mass.

ok… more $ saved … they better not win more than 20 games – we want 1, 2nd, or 3rd draft pick, no lower.

swissflix

wow, Melo gone…we are truly tanking!

tep47

I'd argue you'd be tanking even more WITH Melo… Good riddance.

swissflix

wow. ever heard of irony?

The Cardinal

Nope…KEEPING Melo would have been a sign of "tanking." Melo has to be the worst first round pick of the Danny era. I still wonder if someone wasn't blitzed out of there frickin' mind that night. Forget PEDs – every single person in management who thought that was a wise use of a first round pick should have immediately been tested for alcohol and recreational drug use.

jaks85

And I want a house on the moon but you have to play with the cards you're dealt.

asdf

if we really wanted the 1 draft pick, melo was the right choice starting at center

Phil

No one's surprised that the Melo pick was a complete failure, but it is a little surprising that they cut ties this early, even if they saw it as a hopeless situation internally. I guess this is the easiest way to ensure they don't pay the luxury tax, and now midseason trades are easier since you don't have the extra need to dump a million dollars. That can be the difference between picking up an asset or not.

As far as Melo, he was projected as a second round pick going into his draft class for a reason. Ainge ignored the Bill Simmons unanimous 'NOOO!' reaction test, and here we are. At least I'll remember him for the literal facedesk I did after reading that he was the pick on Twitter. In the end, it's better for a guy to be a complete bust to the point that you move on early rather than having him absorb money and a roster space for five years.

dslack

Eh, there was a unanimous "Nooo!" after Olynyk too, up until he dominated summer league. (And he might yet be terrible against actual NBA competition….)

Phil

It was a much different reaction for Olynyk and Melo. Olynyk was the standard fan grousing after any draft pick. Unless you pick a guy who everyone wants or has major reasons to pick him (Sully is a good example; most people liked that pick because he fell so far,) fans are going to complain because the team didn't pick 'their' guy.

For Melo, it was a collective 'huh?' and 'oh well, one of two in the bottom of the first round isn't bad.' I don't recall any hope among anyone outside of the blindest of homers that the pick was going to work out.

hax

Great news. This almost confirms that our starting center will be Rookie of the Year: Kelly Olynyk.
In Melo's defense, this coaching staff has had some of the worst numbers from the Center position ever. Doc doesn't understand the need for them and discourages even trying to rebound on offense. Even put KG there and we got 14ppg/7rpg.

check12check

I love this article just because of the line "the Fab Melo era". Yes, this is clearly how I defined this era in celtics history. lol

check12check

another thought though. I really think it would have made sense to give Melo one sink-or-swim season in green. Pretty sure it would have gone down like the titanic, but we kind of want to lose. Plus, he possibly could have developed into an NBA caliber player. I guess Ainge and company felt like Faverini (who to me seems like serviceable player who lacks Fab's level of potential, but offers consistency.) was a better direction for the team.

I don't really understand the actions of the Celtics front office right now. It seems like they are determined to land us in the 8-12 position hell where you aren't good and lack a way to get better. Can someone please convince me that we are worse than we look, or that K.O. is going to be Dirk but even better?

Phil

I can help you with the former; imagine last year's team (7 seed, solid.) Now change them from a top 10 defense to a bottom 5 defense. That's what happened when Garnett wasn't on the floor for the Cs last year… and, uh, I don't think he's gonna be on the floor much this year. KG to Bass/Sully may be the single greatest one position drop off in defense over an offseason ever.

Oh yeah, and Pierce is gone. He was kind of important. Pierce was the go to guy on offense and the heart of the team at all times. No one's replacing any of that.

It's possible that Rondo will play better (and more,) than expected, but there's a difference between better than last year Rondo and playoff Rondo. Rondo has to show up to be better than last year Rondo, but Playoff Rondo is devastating because he scores and attacks offensively. Do you anticipate him driving to the rim ten times a game and racking up free throw attempts against Detroit in November for a 20 win team? If he's passing to Brandon Bass and Jeff Green all day, there's a low ceiling on what he can do.

Other teams like Philly are going to be worse, but the Cs won't beat bad teams trying to win like Toronto and Milwaukee. Bottom 6 or so in the league wouldn't be a bad outcome in this draft.

radja9697

You guys love every draft pick…the spring of optimism and blind faith in Danny never runs dry at celticshub-

I mean if we follow the predominant thinking brad Stevens would be able to turn this guy into a solid contributor because unlike doc he is great at developing the kids…into productive nba players…cause Danny hired him to do that…and Danny wouldn’t steer us wrong, right?

JP

Is this probably another signal that they are not going to trade Rondo? It is hard to say, getting under the luxury tax may make it easier to move him, but being under the tax is one of the celtics goals this season. If we want to tank, we have to trade Rondo.

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